Air beam tents.
Discussion
We're looking at buying a new tent as our current family one has done 10 years, it's used for about 6 weeks a year and too small for us.
I'm looking at air beam tents, Vango, Outwell 5/6 berth Mrs simes205 likes the idea of pegging it out, inflating it and ready in 10minutes, especially as we've got two under 3's.
Are they good? Stable?
I'm looking at air beam tents, Vango, Outwell 5/6 berth Mrs simes205 likes the idea of pegging it out, inflating it and ready in 10minutes, especially as we've got two under 3's.
Are they good? Stable?
Edited by Simes205 on Thursday 24th March 20:59
I have a Vango Evoque Airbeam 600 ...I think.
Ridiculously easy to put up and very resilient to bad weather. The main single point of failure on such an expensive tent was the poor quality pump. I bought a spare for a tenner.
Couldn't recommend them enough - so much easy than conventional tents. Our is a good sized family tent which I can pitch by myself if I needed to.
Its a shame I am a miserable bar steward who hates camping and the said tent is sat in the back of the garage being wasted.
And to answer the question very stable - more so than tents I have owned in the past.
Ridiculously easy to put up and very resilient to bad weather. The main single point of failure on such an expensive tent was the poor quality pump. I bought a spare for a tenner.
Couldn't recommend them enough - so much easy than conventional tents. Our is a good sized family tent which I can pitch by myself if I needed to.
Its a shame I am a miserable bar steward who hates camping and the said tent is sat in the back of the garage being wasted.
And to answer the question very stable - more so than tents I have owned in the past.
We have an Outwell Hornet XL
Very easy to put up (if it's not too hot....then you might faint) and handled some bad weather last year (high winds and heavy rain)with minimal movement.
It's pricey and heavy but it's great when pitching quickly in the rain.
We had one issue where one of the valves was damaged (a manufacturing fault) and the whole tube needed replacing under warranty. It was a 2 minute job to unzip the casing and remove the 'pole'.
It is sort of a two-man job when inflating the tent as it's handy to have someone nip inside to lift it. But besides this it's easily doable on your own.
Did I mention that you'll have arms like Arnie after three test runs?
Very easy to put up (if it's not too hot....then you might faint) and handled some bad weather last year (high winds and heavy rain)with minimal movement.
It's pricey and heavy but it's great when pitching quickly in the rain.
We had one issue where one of the valves was damaged (a manufacturing fault) and the whole tube needed replacing under warranty. It was a 2 minute job to unzip the casing and remove the 'pole'.
It is sort of a two-man job when inflating the tent as it's handy to have someone nip inside to lift it. But besides this it's easily doable on your own.
Did I mention that you'll have arms like Arnie after three test runs?
We went and had a look at a few today, came across this:
http://.vango.co.uk/gb/vango-airbeam-tents/133-edo...
Was pleased it was so windy it stood up well to it; very impressed. Ticks all the boxes.
http://.vango.co.uk/gb/vango-airbeam-tents/133-edo...
Was pleased it was so windy it stood up well to it; very impressed. Ticks all the boxes.
I had a Vango two years ago. Perfectly stable, I sold it last year as I had a van to sleep in but last week I decided to buy a berghaus inflatable. Millets have them on sale right now. Going to get its first outing this weekend up in the north coast. I would recommend the pump that hooks up to battery, it is on my list of things to buy next.
EL11SEG said:
I had a Vango two years ago. Perfectly stable, I sold it last year as I had a van to sleep in but last week I decided to buy a berghaus inflatable. Millets have them on sale right now. Going to get its first outing this weekend up in the north coast. I would recommend the pump that hooks up to battery, it is on my list of things to buy next.
You'll need the air-bed type of pump (which runs a fan) rather than the (compressor type) tyre pump you may already have in your car. Even so I reckon you might need to use the manual pump just for the last few puffs of air to get it up to correct pressure. Andy Zarse said:
EL11SEG said:
I had a Vango two years ago. Perfectly stable, I sold it last year as I had a van to sleep in but last week I decided to buy a berghaus inflatable. Millets have them on sale right now. Going to get its first outing this weekend up in the north coast. I would recommend the pump that hooks up to battery, it is on my list of things to buy next.
You'll need the air-bed type of pump (which runs a fan) rather than the (compressor type) tyre pump you may already have in your car. Even so I reckon you might need to use the manual pump just for the last few puffs of air to get it up to correct pressure. 
We bought the Vango edorus 600xl in the end.
Bought from sk camping in Godstone, £850 with footprint and carpet, £50 cheaper than their online price. They got 3 in that morning and 2 were gone by 13:00!
It's fairly big in comparison to our previous 4 man tent......and more so in the boot of our E91!
Bought from sk camping in Godstone, £850 with footprint and carpet, £50 cheaper than their online price. They got 3 in that morning and 2 were gone by 13:00!
It's fairly big in comparison to our previous 4 man tent......and more so in the boot of our E91!
I've got a Vango Airbeam and it really is that easy to pitch. Last year at Carfest we had ours fully pitched,all beds in and made up with the kettle on before our friends had theirs half up. The reason it's so quick is the bedrooms are already installed, so peg it out and pump it up. The foot print is handy as well.
Edited by RVVUNM on Wednesday 25th May 09:00
alolympic said:
Are they really that much quicker to pitch, because you still have most of the same tasks to do which are time consuming.
I thought it was just replacing the fibreglass poles with a pumped system?
You don't have toI thought it was just replacing the fibreglass poles with a pumped system?
Unpack poles
Assemble poles
Push poles through tent, avoid arguing.
Raise poles and tent, avoid tent falling over.
Shout at poles as you try and flex them into anchor position.
Then peg out and do guy lines.
Air beam tent
Peg four corners.
Pump beams up.
Push into place
Peg rest and do guy lines.
Simes205 said:
You don't have to
Unpack poles
Assemble poles
Push poles through tent, avoid arguing.
Raise poles and tent, avoid tent falling over.
Shout at poles as you try and flex them into anchor position.
Then peg out and do guy lines.
Air beam tent
Peg four corners.
Pump beams up.
Push into place
Peg rest and do guy lines.
Pretty much what he said. But the last point is the most time consuming and it's unavoidable whichever style of tent you go for.Unpack poles
Assemble poles
Push poles through tent, avoid arguing.
Raise poles and tent, avoid tent falling over.
Shout at poles as you try and flex them into anchor position.
Then peg out and do guy lines.
Air beam tent
Peg four corners.
Pump beams up.
Push into place
Peg rest and do guy lines.
That being said the time saving of Airbeam over poled is still significant and it's just a lot easier. It's not a direct comparison, but we recently added a 5 man airbeam tent (the Vango Capri 500XL) to the stable and I'd say it took about half the time to get setup over our 8 man metal poled tent. Which makes it a no-brainer for long weekends away, and in our case for a long trip away where space is at a premium (it's a chunk less bulky too without a bag of metal poles.)
tenohfive said:
Simes205 said:
You don't have to
Unpack poles
Assemble poles
Push poles through tent, avoid arguing.
Raise poles and tent, avoid tent falling over.
Shout at poles as you try and flex them into anchor position.
Then peg out and do guy lines.
Air beam tent
Peg four corners.
Pump beams up.
Push into place
Peg rest and do guy lines.
Pretty much what he said. But the last point is the most time consuming and it's unavoidable whichever style of tent you go for.Unpack poles
Assemble poles
Push poles through tent, avoid arguing.
Raise poles and tent, avoid tent falling over.
Shout at poles as you try and flex them into anchor position.
Then peg out and do guy lines.
Air beam tent
Peg four corners.
Pump beams up.
Push into place
Peg rest and do guy lines.
That being said the time saving of Airbeam over poled is still significant and it's just a lot easier. It's not a direct comparison, but we recently added a 5 man airbeam tent (the Vango Capri 500XL) to the stable and I'd say it took about half the time to get setup over our 8 man metal poled tent. Which makes it a no-brainer for long weekends away, and in our case for a long trip away where space is at a premium (it's a chunk less bulky too without a bag of metal poles.)
Lol putting up our Vango airbeam and one of the inner tubes exploded post driving 6hours, 2 small children and also led to torn tent. We stayed in a travel Lodge for the first night and spent 2 hours sewing tent back up to salvage holiday. Called local tent supplier and got a replacement tube.
Vango were fantastic after and replaced the tent with a newer bigger model upon our return.
Vango were fantastic after and replaced the tent with a newer bigger model upon our return.
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